Is anyone else getting a *Twilight Zone* feeling about this missing plane...?

[First Speaker]

...I mean, this is getting weird. I keep listening for Rod Serling's voice in the background...

[deutsey]

1. There actually was an episode about a missing plane

"The Arrival"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arrival_(The_Twilight_Zone)

After flight 107 from Buffalo lands safely with no crew or passengers on board, the FAA sends Grant Sheckly, an inspector with 22 years of experience and a flawless record of solving cases, to investigate the matter. He is assisted by the airport staff — Vice President Bengston, PR man Malloy, mechanic Robbins, and ramp attendant Cousins — but despite their combined efforts, no one can explain how an empty plane could safely land and taxi to a stop.

The investigation continues to prove fruitless until Robbins remarks about the plane's blue seats, which puzzles Sheckly since he remembers them as being brown when he entered the plane. Bengston says they were red. When they examine the plane's tail and each see different registration numbers, Sheckly comes to a conclusion: the plane is not real but merely an illusion.

To prove his theory, as well as to break the illusion, Sheckly proposes a simple but potentially fatal test: he will put his arm in the path of the plane's running propeller. Despite the objections, he convinces the staff to go along with it, and Robbins starts the plane's engines. After some hesitation, Sheckly places his arm directly into the path of the spinning propeller; just as he predicted, his arm remains completely intact, and the plane vanishes. However, when Sheckly turns to reassure the others, he is met only with silence, as they each disappear just as the plane did.

Calling out for the staff, Sheckly makes his way back to the Operations room and meets up with Bengston and Malloy, only to discover that they have no recollection of the empty plane or Sheckly's investigation. When asked, Bengston states that flight 107 from Buffalo landed safely with full crew and passengers and shows him a newspaper article to prove it, but further questions by Sheckly reveal that the only plane that the airline ever lost was a flight 107 from Buffalo, about 17 or 18 years ago. The case had been investigated by Sheckly but was never solved, the only case he never figured out, closed as "presumed crashed for reasons unknown." Sheckly slowly makes his way out of the Operations room, weakly repeating that he has a perfect record of solving cases. As he wanders through the airfield he calls out, demanding to know where flight 107 is, what happened to it, and why it went down. "Why didn't you ever tell anyone what happened to you?", he asks, then he sags onto the runway as the sound of an aircraft engine is heard above him.

[First Speaker]

4. Oh yes...and also, an episode about a plane being caught in a time-loop as well...

...unable to return to the present--that is, 1960...

[Gothmog]

29. I remember both episodes

This story is indeed getting strange

[ecstatic]

2. No, even though I love those type of shows. I'm worried that if there are (were) survivors,

the confusion will keep them from being found in time.

[In_The_Wind]

3. Not so much.

Just a feeling of sadness for all of those who were lost.

[clydefrand]

5. I think it was high-jacked

and flown to Pakistan. No one there would report it if it did go there. However, no one seems to have heard of the 'so called' engine monitors that continuously transmit data about it. I don't recall who said the engines ran another 4 hours after it went missing. ( 4 hours would have taken it there )

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

6. I thought that, too...

but MAN is would take one hell of a conspiracy to pull that off. It require crossing the radar of multiple nations, including flying over (or completely around) India, who I assume wouldn't turn a blind eye to something like that. And I would suspect that any facility in Pakistan with the ability to land a jet that size would be under near-constant surveillance by spy satellites.

[itsrobert]

12. Not likely at all

But that discussion is good for TV ratings

aka Fox News

[B2G]

14. That it wasn't hijacked or

that it was flown to Pakistan? Or both? And why?

[itsrobert]

15. Hijack is a possibity

but flying four hours and landing in Pakistan? Don't think so.

[B2G]

17. Why?

Didn't they have plenty of fuel? If it was hijacked, where would it have been flown to?

[itsrobert]

19. Radar would haved picked it up while flying into Pakistan

n/t

[Buns_of_Fire]

18. Somewhat in that vein (the engines running for 4 hours more), I think of Payne Stewart's

final flight:

MINA, S.D., Oct. 25—A Learjet carrying professional golfer Payne Stewart and at least four others streaked uncontrolled for thousands of miles across the heart of the country today, its occupants apparently unconscious or already dead, before it plunged nose first and crashed in a field near this north-central South Dakota hamlet.

No one on the ground was hurt and there were no survivors aboard the aircraft, which came down in a marshy area about two miles southwest of here.

The cause of the uncontrolled flight and crash after the Learjet 35 apparently ran out of fuel were not known, but aviation experts speculated that the aircraft may have lost pressurization and that emergency backup systems failed as the plane's autopilot kept it in the air. Loss of pressurization above 30,000 feet would cause occupants of the aircraft to lose consciousness from oxygen deficiency in one to two minutes, the experts said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/oct99/crash26.htm

That scenario doesn't answer many questions either, but I imagine we'll all know soon enough.

[itsrobert]

20. that plane was tracked along the way

n/t

[malaise]

21. Huh - no one there would report it

Clearly you don't know Pakistan.

We'll soon see the evidence - that plane crashed

[CJCRANE]

22. Exactly, someone would notice - like the guy who tweeted

about the late night choppers in Abbotobad (which turned out to be the Bin Laden raid).

[malaise]

31. Absolutely

More than that - there are lots of pro-Western Pakistanis

[jsr]

7. Well, they still haven't found that B-25 bomber in the Mon River

in Pittsburgh.

[Mojo Electro]

8. Now that you mention it.

I wonder if the plane will suddenly appear at the spot it vanished and continue the flight, with all onboard computers showing the date/time as what it would have been had nothing happened, and none of the passengers aware any abnormal passage of time.

[marions ghost]

10. Like the Philadelphia Experiment

[egold2604]

9. The Dharma Initiative has the plane and survivors on an Island

[marions ghost]

11. At this point

Creative speculation is inevitable.

With all due respect to the families of those missing, this is starting to get a surreal quality.

[lpbk2713]

13. No, not me.

But thanks for asking.

[Bosonic]

16. Nope, it's a much better fit for 'Lost'

The pilot told Jack and Kate that the plane was 1,000 miles off course when it crashed and that the rescue team was looking in the wrong place. ("Pilot, Part 1&quot

[undeterred]

25. Yeah, totally LOST.

Its out there somewhere. Very little chance that anyone is still alive, but we have to keep looking urgently as there is still a possibility.

[Fawke Em]

23. ...

[raccoon]

24. Maybe some aliens will come and save us all! nt

[kristopher]

26. No.

But evidence is accumulating that someone wanted to steal a civilian airliner.

[11 Bravo]

27. Here you go ...

[Freddie]

28. It's Obama's fault, ya know

Saw it on FB already (not kidding)

[NuclearDem]

30. Not really.

Planes crash and planes get hijacked. In an area of the world without the radar coverage, air traffic control network, and SAR capabilities of the US, planes tend to be hard to find when things go wrong.

If this same thing had happened to a flight out of Laguardia headed to Boston or Chicago and weeks had gone by without any sign of them, that would be a different matter.